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Sunday, January 11, 2015

When you are stuck in a weekly conference listening to one of the senior person making poor jokes, & you along with your colleagues dreading this moment of being forced to find the jokes funny and laugh on it. That is the moment when you feel like running away from that room to a blissful place, a place away from pretence and where you can sit and breathe, just breathe. That’s when you need to go to Bali!

Every day you wake up, go to office, travel back, eat and
sleep. When this routine chore makes you want to pray or crave for change &
excitement. That’s when you need to go to Bali!

When nothing in your life makes sense and you have spent too
many hours thinking about where you are heading in your career or better yet,
pondering on what is the purpose of your life? That’s when you know you need to
take a BREAK and head for Bali!

When you have read the best ever work of Elizabeth Gilbert Eat Pray and Love and fallen in love
with the picturesque beauty of Bali
aesthetically directed by Ryan Murphy in the movie based on this novel. That’s
when you need to go to Bali!

No, I did not go to Bali to search for myself. I did not go
to Bali to take a Soul trip. Nor did I go to Bali clutching the copy of Eat
Pray and Love hoping it will transform my life, nor did I went their to fall in
love with an Italian dude.

I am just an average Independent Indian Woman, who saved
just like any other Indian tourist to have her first ever international solo
trip to one of my dream destinations. And the only agenda I had in this trip
was to make the money I have spent worthwhile and enjoy every freaking second
of my vacation.

Bali is considered to be the Art Center of Indonesia and
even after being an Island, it has plethora of things to get indulge in. And
that’s just what I did and ended up having THE trip of my life.

After enduring 14 hour long trip through Malaysian Airlines,
not to forget the hyper anxiety of considering the possibility of vanishing
into thin air any second, I landed at the Denpasar Airport, Bali and started
the 5 most memorable days of year 2014 of my life.

The first thing that you will catch in Bali is the wave of
hospitality and heart melting smiles of Balinese people, which can be
experienced right from the Immigration section to the day you get on board at the
end of your trip. Even the broody flight attendants seems to smile a little
brighter just as the wheels of your plane touches the airport runway which is
surrounded by water from three directions.

The second thing that will hit you being an Indian is , coming
from a land, where more than 88000 Gods are worshiped, you may believe that you
belong to the most religious, traditional and culturally rich country. Your
myths will be in for a shock if you have spent even a day in this outrageously
beautiful place which is covered from head to toe with structures depicting the
historical and mythological tales of Hindu religion, especially the tales of Mahabharata
and Ramayana.

Yes you read it right!

Scene from Ramayana

Almost all the roundabouts in Bali has life size statues of
Ram, Deva Ruci, Ghatotkach, scene of Krishna giving Arjun the lessons of Bhagavad-Gita,
or a magnificent life size work of art where Ravana is challenging Ram to kill
him. One can get into a trance watching the meticulous hand work of the statues
and it takes considerable amount of will power to stop staring at them and get
moving from the middle of the road.

Third thing you will notice in Bali is that Balinese are
very nosy people. The moment I entered my Hotel room I grabbed their Welcome
Book as I settled with Hot coffee wishing it will take some of the jet leg away
and almost spilled a mouth full on the book when I read the first few lines of
the “our people” page, which clearly gave a warning to not get offended as Bali people can be very curious (softer word for
nosy I thought) and will keep asking personal questions with you, request you
to kindly treat them patiently as this will be your experience almost in every
part of Bali.

When the words finally sunk in I laughed my head off, I am
from India, INDIA, what did these Balinese know about being nosy. May be that’s
the reason I didn’t take a picture of that book. Boy! Was I in for a shock,
shock was it was.

The warning of the welcome book was nowhere closer to reality,
not only Balinese nosy people, they will inquire your life out like a
Biographer. They do not understand the subtle warnings, subtle yet clear
warnings of your body language stating you do not want to answer the questions,
may be for the sake of your safety or may be for the sake of not being super
annoyed with the taxi driver who is going to drive you for next 9 hours. They
will keep getting into the details until you spill all your beans and ensure
that nothing else or ambiguous is remaining to be clarified. But at the same
time they are downright sweethearts, they talk politely, pay attention to every
details, go far and beyond to make your travel comfortable. If you share a good
conversation with your driver or guide, they will show you the cheapest places
to buy goodies, eat delectable meals or places that you can enjoy which you
wouldn’t find in any of the travel sites, blogs or forums.

Souvenirs

Fourth thing you will notice which will have many Indians
running away is most of the souvenirs in Bali is phallus shaped. Talk about,
pen stands, key chanis, refrigerator magnets or a bottle opener. You will find
them sitting around at the front row of all the artefact’s or just dangling
from the ceiling of shop, carved out of wood with utmost precision, believe me
I can tell!

In those five precious days that I had, I experienced two
completely different faces of Bali while one was fun, alighted, glamorous,
funky and wild at times; the other was calmer, serene, quiet and laid back.

One would make you want to party all night while the other
will force you to grab a Yoga mat and sit in the company of self and embrace
every second of it.

This being my first solo experience, I will refrain from
writing on my budget, as I hold no constraints there. I had researched and read
about the places and services available for travel, eat or sightseeing, that
even before I landed I knew exactly where to go and how to go, even the
landmarks I will be crossing while reaching my destination. Traveling alone,
builds in you a new level of confidence and a renewed sense of
responsibilities. All you need is to give yourself some time to enjoy your own
company and before you knew it you will be addicted to the quality time you
will spend indulging with self.

The first half of my journey I spend in Seminyak couple of
kilometres away from Kuta. That is just my way of spending my vacation;
wherever I go I find out the most hyped places, the most commercialised and
then plan my trip in a way that I stay away from those places. The most
commercialised place at any tourist place is not driven by the native culture;
it is driven by the tourist’s expectations. The formula to enjoy the essence of
any place or city is, to live in a place which is whithin approachable distance from your destinations so that you can enjoy the feel of the city, with more native people
around and less tourists. In Bali Kuta is one highly commercialised location,
in fact the entire Bali struggles to keep a hold on their years old traditions
and culture in the midst of increasing tourist footfalls.

Semiyak is “the” city of Bali. With almost 3 to 4 kilometres
long market, dazzling with everything from apparels to some really awesome
beaded and stone jewellery. Semiyak beach rattles all morning with water
activities pursued by mainly families, in night it transforms in to a blazing
land with hundreds of lanterns, bean bags, Balinese delicacies and live music. It
was serene day and night.

Being with self turns into an adventure when you are
in company with amazing people from different nationalities and you will make
friends at every corner, at eating joints, in the temple lines, during shared
conveyances and even when you are negotiating while buying souvenirs. Another
reason for choosing Seminyak was its approachability in terms of kilometres to
travel from south to north Bali.

Barong Dance

The very first night I fortunately stumbled in the
restaurant by sheer sound of the music coming from it which could be heard from
across the street. Good thing I did went in, that too just in time to enjoy the
one hour show of Barong Dance, traditional Balinese Dance. This dance is
another Story narrating dance form, Barong is a lion and Barong fights with
Rangada, the demon queen the mother of all evil spirits. I saw that dance as
the combination of extremely enhanced and controlled expressions, both at the
same time and the grace with which the girls and the boys performed the entire
routine, which was so well rehearsed. Trying to strike up a conversation with
one of the performer wasn’t very successful, although my bartender did inform
that these girls and boys are anywhere from the age of 12 – 17. I mean can you
believe this. Being so young and yet so strong in their performance, as they
act out the mythological tales of Bali. It would be true to believe that
Balinese live and sleep their culture.

Bali is full of serene sights and thousands of Temples, what
will do you well is searching out all the tourist attractions, historical
monuments you would like to visit from the huge list of tourist attraction, and also
list down the activities you would like to do which was rusting in your wish
list since like forever.

Tanha Lot Temple

And so I dove into the 16th century architects of
the most sacred temple in Bali including Holy Spring Temple, Taman Ayun and my personal
favourite place Pura Tanah Lot, a temple which is a small island in itself, the
darkened structure, caused due to dense trees all around, only made the place
feel more desirable. The temple is one of seven sea temples around the Balinese
coast. Balinese temples are not maintained as
the temples of India, they are not crowded, there is no line you need to stand
in for hours together and definitely far more squeaky clean, which is easy to
maintain as tourists are simple not allowed to step near the mail temple station, specially the temple that are considered most sacred
like Tanah Lot Temple. Although you might encounter the best ever Sunset you
have witnessed in your entire life.

Tirta Empul Temple

Tirta Empul Temple also commonly referred as Holy spring
water is a reflection of the tradition and culture followed in India where the
Indians take pilgrimage to theGanges and take a dip in the holy water in order to clean
themselves of sin. Small pond lined with beautiful design serving as an opening
for the spring water from Sungai Pakerisan River
to flow in the pond, which is considered holy and it is said to make you pure
by cleaning your mind, body and soul, three words that the preachers of temple
have learned to speak in flawless English. Mesmerised as I was with the temple
in the entirety, I was more amazed to see, how dedicatedly and faithfully
people from various nationalities, took a dip in that water, hiring preachers
from the temple in order to help them clean their mind, body and soul, it makes
you wonder, how much work does it really take to convert a person from a
believer to a follower. Although I did not take a holy water dip myself, but I
surely walked out of there feeling more acceptable towards the tradition of my
own land, do I not know how many tourist comes to India in spiritual search and
how many jumps into ganga to become sinless, off course I do. But here, I am
referring to the people who neither come from the land of zillion traditions
nor are they interested in developing spirituality and definitely not looking
for any Guru. But people who would temporally accept any kind of tradition if
it can at all help in their personal agendas hoping, may be this will work for them, but
then may be not!

Coffee Estates

Another attraction you do not want to miss is the Coffee
Plantation. You may want to park beside th street and take a walk in the trench
filled with Coffe Estates, they even show you how the worlds most expensive
Luwak Coffee is made and indulge you with Coffee and tea samples, while you
enjoy the serene beauty of coffee estate.

When it came to doing activities which was rusting in my
wish list, the one that topped all was Scuba Diving, 16km away from Semiyak is
a beach called Nusa Dua. The beach will remind you of goa back home but the
water activities offered their will bring you right back, from water walking to
Snorkelling to Scuba Diving. You name it they will offer it. Here and at all
the market places you go in Bali you will have the pleasure of dealing with
money in Lakhs, given the currency exchange rate between Indian rupee and
Indonesian Rupiah, even taking cash out from the ATM the lowest figure you can
punch in is 50,000 rs. Isnt it amazing, and all through my trip I had
negotiated from 50,000rs to 5 lakhs rupees. The entire scuba diving experience
costed like 10 lakhs rupees which is around 4700 to 5000 rs only in Indian
Rupee. Call me silly but the pleasure of dealing in lakhs was out of the world.
Not to mention the laugh roit I had after winning my every negotiation had my
taxi drivers thinking me as lony bit. My entire trip in Bali as per their
currency was somewhere around 1.5 crores, sounds extravagant, well it wasn’t,
wasn’t at all.

Picture taken while scuba diving

The whole scuba diving experience was simple out of the
world, wordless and so much worth every bit of the trip. No, I did not suddenly
realise the meaning of life nor did I suddenly became more aware of my being
like shown in the movies. But the entire
journey from the shore of the sea to the middle of the sea, jumping in and
gearing up with the oxygen cylinder (requiring two men to just lift it up
enough so that it can be thrown in water, where you get fitted with it), and
then swimming to the depth of the sea, with your instructor as your soul
saviour (well although I can swim, but we are talking about going to the
deepest of the sea and staying there, I mean you need help, like clinging to
someone for your dear life “help”).

I have no fear when it comes to water I
embrace it like an old friend, yet I was glad it wasn’t as deep as I have seen
it in the movies or discovery channel, yet I enjoyed every moment of the twenty
minutes I spent inside, the Shoals of tiny iridescent fishes or the Swaying
anemones filtering the gentle currents of their tiny unseen haul, the best
twenty minutes spent of the Bali trip, and an awesome experience “checked” of
the list.

After my on the toes days in Seminyak, I went to Ubud, where
I met the flip side of bali. Like the myth in the ancient Roman religion where
the God Janus, which has two faces, reflects on the two sides of each
situation, moment and person. Likewise Bali’s other face is subdued, calm and
comfortably quite. I did not planned going on any adventures from Ubud, Instead
I soaked in its calm, walked the quite roads lined with restaurants of every
kind, Mexican, Italian , thai, indian, and indulged in the most relaxing foot
massage, just before I was scheduled to say good bye.

I did not intend anything before visiting Bali, it wasn’t a journey
of spiritual search or journey towards understanding my purpose. My trip went
smoothly and I did everything that I planned for. All I wanted was to have fun,
meet great people, eat delicious food and pick up souvenirs for my family. And
yet when I returned, I returned with an enhanced sense of completion.

When traveling solo the realization that you are on your own
sinks in only when your feet touches the land of your destination, strange
place surrounded with strangers. Though traveling with friends has its own
perks, but traveling solo is definitely a high, a high so addictive that it
kept me giddy the entire six days of my trip that by the end of it I was
already making plans for my next fix.

Friday, July 11, 2014

To what do you owe your life? Is it your family, your work,
your friends, your beliefs, your wisdom or your sheer strength? Everyone one of
us owe our life to something or someone, it can be just few minutes one gets in
the morning, sometimes people owe their life to that part of the day, the only
time they get to be with themselves.

Somewhere deep down, I believe, we all are searching for that
one thing in life that can safely be put in the box labeled passion in our mind. Don’t we? Or is it
just me?

Do we not want to search that one thing/ that one person we
can devote our life to? Life without passion would be life not worth anything.

Find it, find that thing you love most to do, an activity, a
hobby, a long lost dream, your love, your kids, your home, your spouse, your
work. It can be anything, & if you dedicate your life in finding this one thing
that makes every other aspect of your life bearable, that spiral every ugly
thing and shapes it into something magnificent. You WILL have it all.

Explore yourself or if needed implore with self. Ask the
difficult and uncomfortable question. Be aware, this process is not easy, but
no, this isn’t difficult either, it just needs a little bit more of perseverance.
I have not found my passion yet and I owe my life to finding it, dig it out of
me if needed. And that gives me enough zest to keep moving.

If you have your passion in your palms you will always find a
way to keep moving. Happiness does this to you, motivates you to keep steering
the wheel. If you have not found what your passion is, yet, any set back, bad
experience, situation or people will not be able to hold you down, because without
passion your soul will be translucent with no substance, and hence you will
filter yourself out from any bad thing so that you can reach your destination
which will not only bring you to substance but it materialize you while giving
you a purpose. Once you reach there you will find all the resources in your mind
to make your life something, everything!

Saturday, July 5, 2014

Year - 1990
The translucent blues, made to be rolled around in dust, if you look into those bluish glass, the sheer magnificent beauty of it will make you think as if you are glancing at the universe in the night from your telescope, the grey, blue, greens and whites spread in undefined structures made me feel that If I look at it long enough it will reveal some magical world or may be some hidden realities of the life.

Counting them before the game and after it was the most important task as our heart would break if we loose even one of these beautiful Marbles, playing with it turn the hours into seconds and time flew by in sheer laughter and silly competitions of sending those marbles flying into a hand made hole in the sand.

Such was the childhood of all the 80's & the 90's adolescents.

Year - 2014
Spotting Stars in the sky is more difficult now, forgot about the constellations that we use to mark swishing our fingers to make imaginary lines to connect them, now there are as few as handful that you can spot, that too, if you have time enough to do so. Glancing out of my balcony I sometimes walk out just to stare at the sky. Why? I do not know, it just makes me a little more humbler.
I then look down to the park where some toddlers are playing in the grass, games I do not understand, some ride their bikes in the limited area of the societie's side path, group of them just sit on the stairs and discuss the life (i guess) away. I know their play time is somewhere being timed by their parents, I hardly ever see children playing without seeing their parents hovering in the background. These times are not safe, the trust is running all time low, and god forbid if you have young girls, the tension hovering over parents to not let them away from their sight in public must be exhausting.

Times are changing so fast, it makes me sad and at the same time anxious. As if you are watching through hour glass and well aware that your time is running out. But instead of watching sand flowing down, I see the memories flowing away and I try to catch some of them, remembering how easy it was to make friends then, not virtually but literally, the non-judgmental rambling, playing in the dust, wounded knees & scraped palms were treated lightly by then non obsessive parents, and with absolutely no pressure of posting something cool, quirky or witty on your FB or twitter or the pressure of increasing the number of friends on the same.

Is it my place to feel sad for these toddlers to have a techo-blanketed childhood? I do not know, but I am sad. Happy to see they are intellectually more ahead then my generation when we were young, but sad to think that maybe, just may be their generation will never find out the achievement of searching a new hiding place in the routine hide and seek game, they will never know the adrenaline pumping in your veins while you wait for the unknown next victim of "Ghoda Badam Chai", or the sheer fun of running for your life playing "Pakdam Pati", or the waiting for summer vacations to play Cards, for girls to play with doll houses and miniature kitchen sets or for boys playing with G.I Joes, or playing the life and death game of "The game of life" or "Monopoly" and tear each other up for fake money and laugh till your eyes are teary.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Its been two months seen I was here
Its been couple of weeks since I felt the need to write
Its been couple of days since I had rendezvous with my words
Its been couple of years since I made them my best friend

Always, they were here always when I need a friend
Always, they were here always when I felt alone
Always, they were here always when I was sad
Always, they were here always to make my tears go away

Again, I ask them again today to be my solace
Again, I ask them again today to lead the way
Again, through them I try to find the way
Again, once again I ask them to help me find whats lost
Again, once again I ask them to help me find myself.Just this once, really find myself...

Written By - The Rover"I wait and wait and wait, only if i knew what is it that I await"

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

"Why such Drama every Year"?, This was my first thought the moment
I saw the Principal escorted by two of the student volunteers walking down the
path to the Flag hosting stage. I was 10 then and year after year I saw this
ceremony being conducted in the school grounds, in the colonies, societies and
many other institutions. Even at that time it felt like hoax. Entire day of
14th August was spent recalling the meaning and the spirit of independence
wrapped in all sort of patriotic songs tuned in almost every corner of the
city. Even the television becomes unbearable on those 2-3 days, the all sort of
patriotic movies, live shows featuring all those "God knows" what
kind of people working so damn hard for TRP's.

Anyways, the point is even after 16 years I feel the same. All hoopla
about the Independence Day across entire nation when there is not even a single
feeling close enough to the feeling of freedom.
And I am not talking here about the National issues, the poverty, corruption
or crime. I am talking on a more individual level; our own thoughts,
perspectives, values and obligations.

With past years I have lost the sense of celebrating any freedom related
crap, more than ninety percent of individuals I meet are so frustratingly
trapped in their own mind, the strings of overdone values and illogical
traditions, and unreasonable obligations they endure and force their fellows to
endure gets you far from the feeling of being free. In this era I feel sadly
hopeless that the feeling of freedom is far from our reach, we may talk about
it, read about it, endorse it but it would be so hard to fully feel it, not
until we are free from all sorts of strings and obligations we suffer mentally
and emotionally, the self made bonds that we have tied ourselves around, with
the limitations we have self designed and the locks we have put on the doors of
our mind, which restricts us to create any space for new perspectives &
thoughts and close us from understanding the mere cultural differences.

I wish though and pray the meaning of Independence Day should change in the
coming decade not only for our sake's but for the sake of the nation as a
whole. I remember those lines from the movie "Rang - de - Basanti , I can’t
stop myself from quoting, we need to first change ourselves in order to see or
hope any bigger changes to be implemented in the nation, because that’s the
most any one of us can really do.

Friday, August 9, 2013

The story starts a long time ago; I met a friend, little
that I know she was one of many to come. Trying to understand the meaning of
friendship we savored with each other every minute. I learned how you can think
of heights with somebody right beside you, the bliss of kindergarten
friendship. The duet became a trio and the Girl party turned into a co-ed
cohesion. I learned than the first crush, the first blush and the twisted
planning of attention grabbing.

Time flew by so quick that before I took another breathe, it
changed

Then I met my second best friend. The innocent heart bloomed
in innocent times. Sharing the same obsession with than our favorite sitcom “I dream
of Genie”. I learned that the magic exists all around when it exists in your
heart. I learned than Magical world is much better than the reality which was
wrapped around the cocoon of our friendship.

The cruel time deceived again, like sand in my fist it kept
slipping away..

I than entered into the world of dark shadows, at the ripe
age of 11, I saw darkness, evil manipulation and deceit in other pupil
of same age. I learned how wrong the preachers can be, the teachers who you look
up to teach you the way of life are the followers of self image, personal
success and capitalism. The theory of which I understood way before than the existence of these words.

With only naivety in my heart I learned from them how to get
emotionally detached, I learned how to get your self esteem marred and never
object, I learned from them how to push people away, most importantly I learned
how to become a non – entity so that the pain could be escaped.

So long these years were that I thought there is no end to
it and suddenly the cruel time came disguised as Kind wanderer….

I met the most important confidants of my life. I still bow
to time for the mercy bestowed. I learned from them non – judgmental
companionship and acquaintances, I learned from them that friends could share
silence, pain, sadness, happiness and life all the same. I learned from them
the fun, the laughter till tears, the “I don’t give a damn attitude” to “I know
life attitude”, I learned from them the life, the perspectives, the questions,
the doubts, the solutions, the solace and how to stand by each other through all
of that.

But such blissful breaks only exist to break one day..

It broke the day I entered the era called “World”. The
ruthless, the unkind, the uncivilized and inhuman. This “World” gave me the
friendship that scared the shit out of all the relationships I ever had. It
gave me the love which had me prayed to never be loved again. It gave me the
confidence that destroyed me. It introduced me to the people who will salute
you if you have a shining armor and throw dust at you immediately if the shine
fades, in order to bury you deep down to cease your existence.

This world though brought me closer to my real friends and
family but also made me realize I never wanted this “world” ever. The neon lights
that allure you to this era when looked closely they are being lit by the
burned souls of its occupants, the cool breeze that gives you a moments calm are the heavy
breathing of forerunners breathing down your neck waiting to cut you open just
to take a step ahead.

Today I take a breather to look into the past, I stand here
with no past, no present, no future. I have no thoughts, no mind and no souls,
a barren land, with no sun, no moon, I do not know if it’s leading towards
morning or night… but its definitely cold and dark.

Still with hope in my heart and faith in my eyes I stand
here with my hand outstretched and palms open, wishing when the time comes to
close the fist, I have something to hold on to which will be the reason of all
that I saw, learned and went through, which I can call mine, which will reflect
on who I was and what I have become the way I have become. I am hoping for time to befriend me again, even in a disguise.